Protector of Small Stories
by AmazingAlex0818
Summary: A collection of drabbles inspired by our favorite characters from The Protector of the Small. Mostly cute and fluffy with chances of drama thrown in! Chapter 2 is up!
1. Drinks & Declarations

All rights belong to Tamora Pierce. I do not own any characters you recognize here.

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Kel looked at her best friend leaning against her doorjamb and shook her head at his appearance. Neal's emerald eyes were over bright, his face was flushed and he seemed to have trouble standing under his own power. She didn't think she had seem him look so disheveled before- not even when they had had that little disagreement with bandits when they were pages.

"What are you doing here this late, Neal?" she asked in a fierce whisper.

Her hazel eyes looked at him in confusion and she smoothed her nightshirt down as she looked up and down the dark hall behind him. She took in his appearance again as the smell of alcohol began to fill her nose.

"Are you drunk?!" her voice was incredulous as she looked at her best fried with new eyes.

Neal looked vaguely surprised at her tone and his eyebrows lowered as if he was trying to translate her rapid questions. He ran his hands through hair that already stood on end and seemed to ponder the question.

"I'm... moderately functional." he replied finally, pronouncing each word with care.

"I'll take that as a yes," she sighed. "And I suppose you locked yourself out of your rooms so you came to mine."

She shook her head at his folly and swallowed a laugh at the sorry state he was in.

"And because we never see one another anymore, Kel! We are always running this way and that at the beck and call of our knight masters! My knight mistress should have been nicknamed Bear! She is as grumpy as one and she is always so serious."

His face became a grimace as he started to rant,

"She has no appreciation for my dramatic flair or thirst for knowledge. Always telling me not to complain and then dragging me off to some gods forsaken town to learn how to heal hang nails. And when she isn't working my Gift dry she is hitting me with a stick and knocking me into the dirt. And I miss our study group, I miss you, Kel. She never tells me to eat my vegetables or listens to my poetry and she isn't you. You miss me too don't you?" Neal's voice was plaintive as he asked his last question, and he shot her a dejected look.

Keladry of Mindelan fought a smile as she took in her 19 year old best friend, looking for all the world like one of her nephews who had been denied a favorite toy.

"Of course I miss you, Meathead." her voice was warm as she reached out to steady him. "And we'll see each other plenty once we become knights, this is just the next step we have to take. I'm sure Alanna is just trying to make you the best knight and healer you can be."

Kel considered their predicament, with Neal locked out of his room, she couldn't escort him back and she certainly couldn't leave him to sleep it off in her doorway. Her mind made up, she moved forward and put his arms around her shoulders and led Neal into her room, depositing him onto the bed she had just rolled out of.

Neal sat on the edge of the bed heavily, as if all his strings had been cut suddenly and Kel knelt down and quickly removed his boots and tunic before he slumped sideways.

Kel smiled at the boy in her bed in fond exasperation and allowed herself to smooth his hair back, something she had longed to do as a page. Looking at him now she no longer saw a potential love. Her feelings of longing and restless butterflies had faded to be replaced with warm friendship and a bond that would last the span of their lives. Now she saw her closest friend truest companion. The first person to show her kindness when she had entered the palace; the one who had secretly healed her hurts, despite her protests; the one who she would become a knight of the realm beside.

And the one who was now making her sleep in a chair in Lord Raoul's office, the practical voice in her head reminded her. Shaking off her nostalgic thoughts, Kel grabbed a pillow off the end of her bed and went to try to arrange her large frame into one of the chairs in hopes of catching a few more hours sleep. After all, dawn comes early and, she shifted to try to find a comfortable spot, if Neal was in the palace tomorrow they could get a few bells at the practice court together. She almost laughed out loud as she imagined his reaction to her deciding to take this chance to "hit him with a stick and knock him in the dirt" and fell asleep to the sound of Neal's snores in her ears and a smile on her face.

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Please tell me what you think by sending me a message/writing a review! If you have any other prompts you'd like me to follow please let me know!


	2. Grumpy Beginnings

Welcome! Thank you for my reviews so far, they make me smile so much and inspire me to continue. This story is based on the prompt Grumpy Beginnings and features Fanche and Kel. Please tell me what you think! All characters and dialogue you recognize belongs to Tamora Pierce.

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September 10, 460

"Stop fussing. You'll be away for a week- if we can't manage for that long, what good are we?"

Fanche stood with her hands on hips as she looked up at the girl- no the woman- that she had wholeheartedly followed into battle. Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan- and New Hope, though she may never carry the official title, had been running around all week buttoning up the camp for her week long visit to the fort Steadfast.

Fanche was reminiscent of being a new mother and the first time she had left her little ones at home alone. The thought hurt but in a curious way that made her smile at the memory.

Lady Kel's eyes danced with humor as she grinned back, "Actually, I was trying to remember if there was anything I hadn't done. Shutters left open-"

Fanche let the light banter to continue on around her and glanced behind her at was steadily becoming a town, a home even, that she and the others could be proud of. She knew those who hadn't had their villages or families completely destroyed might return to their homes. But others, like Saefas and herself would most likely remain here- where they had begun to build new memories. Memories built of blood and grit and the dogged determination of the Lady Knight astride her too-big horse in front of her.

She chuckled quietly to herself- Saefas would tell her she was becoming poetic in her old age. But she knew the knight in front of her was no less than miraculous- a true Protector of the Small. Besides, they had had a somewhat grumpy beginning and she thought she owed Lady Kel some good thoughts.

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April 14, 460

Fanche looked around the large building that housed her and the rest of the refugees of this gods forsaken war. That word played over again in her mind. Refugees. Homeless. Hopeless. Souls with nothing to their names except the cast offs of grudging nobles and a military that saw them as a problem to be solved, not people who had lost everything they had.

She stalked the length of the building, wrinkling her nose at the smell of unwashed humans, overcooked gruel, and animals stuffed in one building. Her finger twirled the braided ring on her finger, remembering all that she had lost, as she moved over to the cooking pot to settle yet another argument about the distribution of too little food to too many people.

The rush of fresh air and sudden silence announced visitors to their "home" and she turned to look upon Lord Wyldon, commander of the fort, and a tall muscled whelp, obviously a noble from their well made clothes. Her lipped curled at being put on display like animals in a menagerie she's never seen, just heard of.

"If you've come to share supper, my lord, we've none to spare, we ate it all and could have eaten more." She struggled to keep her tone somewhat civil as she walked forward.

She gave the youngster a more thorough look over. He had cropped hair that a more generous soul might have called almond but she was inclined to call mousy. His quilted tunic bore an odd badge that still labeled him a knight. She supposed he might be considered handsome by some, he was tall with strong muscled arms and dreamy hazel eyes that made her certain he had never seen tragedies like what had befallen her girls.

She didn't manage to contain the scorn in her voice as she asked Lord Wyldon, "Giving this pup a look at the unfortunate? Something for the lad to write home about?"

"Good evening, Mistress Fanche," the staunchly polite commander replied, "This is one of the knights who has come to defend the border, Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan. Lady Keladry, Fanche Weir."

Fanche noticed the boy- the girl- glance at her left hand as she received a smart bow and she knew the Lord noticed it too as he took it upon himself to explain her circumstance. As if it made it less sad to be a widow and - Gods there wasn't even a word for a mother who outlived her children. She hardened her heart to hear of her husband as a "was" and to know that he had gone to the Black God's embrace, a place she could not follow. Not while the rest of the Goatstrack village depended on her.

"'Was' bakes no bread. I'm single enough now, and I've work to do." She made her voice brusque and business-like to hide the hurt in her voice as she returned to the cooking pot to think about what it might mean that the commander had chosen this girl- of all the knights to travel North- to introduce.

She watched that smart mouthed Saefas approach the pair and looked forward to getting his opinion on the newcomer- especially if her suspicions were correct. Could this girl somehow be charged with guarding the refugees at whatever curst hole they were moved to? She wondered if the youngling was someone important, that she would be stationed this far from the front or simply incompetent that they couldn't trust her fighting the Scanrans.

No matter what, next time she encountered this whelp she resolved to keep her eye on her. She wasn't about to let her people be slaughtered because they had been put into the care of a green girl, probably no better than she should be.

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I appreciate you guys not pointing out my horrible spelling mistakes in the last chapter, my word processor doesn't have spell check and I didn't notice. I have corrected the previous chapter and I believe I caught any mistakes in this chapter but if you notice any that I missed, please don't be so polite this time and let know in a review or private message!


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